The Status Civilization Read online

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  [Transcriber's Notes:

  1. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that thecopyright on this publication was renewed.

  2. Several misprints corrected. The complete list may be foundat the end of the file.]

  "Yes sir. Well, there are three men outside trying to kill me...."

  "Quite right," Mr. Frendlyer said. "And today is Landing Day. You cameoff the ship that landed today, and have been classified a peon.... I'mhappy to say that everything is in order. The Landing Day Hunt ends atsundown. You can leave here with the knowledge that everything iscorrect and that your rights have not been violated."

  "Leave here? After sundown, you mean."

  Mr. Frendlyer shook his head and smiled sadly. "I'm afraid not.According to the law you must leave here at once."

  "But they'll kill me!"

  "That's very true. Unfortunately it can't be helped. A victim bydefinition is one who is to be killed.... We protect rights, notvictims."

  OMEGA: PRISON PLANET LIFE EXPECTANCY: THREE YEARS MAXIMUM MOST PEOPLE ARE LUCKIER THAN THAT....

  Books by ROBERT SHECKLEY:

  CITIZEN IN SPACE IMMORTALITY, INC. MINDSWAP PILGRIMAGE TO EARTH THE 10TH VICTIM UNTOUCHED BY HUMAN HANDS DIMENSION OF MIRACLES THE JOURNEY OF JOENES THE STATUS CIVILIZATION/NOTIONS: UNLIMITED

  _From ACE Science Fiction_

  THE STATUS CIVILIZATION

  ROBERT SHECKLEY

  ace books

  A Division of Charter Communications Inc. A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY

  360 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010

  THE STATUS CIVILIZATION

  Copyright (C) 1960 by Robert Sheckley

  First appeared under the title _Omega in Amazing Science FictionStories_, published by Ziff-Davis.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any formor by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in areview, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actualpersons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  An ACE Book

  _Cover art by David Bergen_

  First Ace printing: November 1979

  2468097531

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  THE STATUS CIVILIZATION 1

  TO ANYA

  THE STATUS CIVILIZATION

  Chapter One

  His return to consciousness was a slow and painful process. It was ajourney in which he traversed all time. He dreamed. He rose throughthick layers of sleep, out of the imaginary beginnings of all things. Helifted a pseudopod from primordial ooze, and the pseudopod was _him_. Hebecame an amoeba which contained _his_ essence; then a fish marked withhis own peculiar individuality; then an ape unlike all other apes. Andfinally, he became a man.

  What kind of man? Dimly he saw himself, faceless, a beamer gripped tighton one hand, a corpse at his feet. _That_ kind of man.

  He awoke, rubbed his eyes, and waited for further memories to come.

  No memories came. Not even his name.

  He sat up hastily and willed memory to return. When it didn't, he lookedaround, seeking in his surroundings some clue to his identity.

  He was sitting on a bed in a small gray room. There was a closed dooron one side. On the other, through a curtained alcove, he could see atiny lavatory. Light came into the room from some hidden source, perhapsfrom the ceiling itself. The room had a bed and a single chair, andnothing else.

  He held his chin in his hand and closed his eyes. He tried to catalogueall his knowledge, and the implications of that knowledge. He knew thathe was a man, species Homo sapiens, an inhabitant of the planet Earth.He spoke a language which he knew was English. (Did that mean that therewere other languages?) He knew the commonplace names for things: room,light, chair. He possessed in addition a limited amount of generalknowledge. He knew that there were many important things which he didnot know, which he once had known.

  _Something must have happened to me._

  That something could have been worse. If it had gone a little further,he might have been left a mindless creature without a language, unawareof being human, of being a man, of being of Earth. A certain amount hadbeen left to him.

  But when he tried to think beyond the basic facts in his possession, hecame to a dark and horror-filled area. _Do Not Enter._ Exploration intohis own mind was as dangerous as a journey to--what? He couldn't find ananalogue, though he suspected that many existed.

  _I must have been sick._

  That was the only reasonable explanation. He was a man with therecollection of memories. He must at one time have had that pricelesswealth of recall which now he could only deduce from the limitedevidence at his disposal. At one time he must have had specific memoriesof birds, trees, friends, family, status, a wife perhaps. Now he couldonly theorize about them. Once he had been able to say, this is like,or, that reminds me of. Now nothing reminded him of anything, and thingswere only like themselves. He had lost his powers of contrast andcomparison. He could no longer analyze the present in terms of theexperienced past.

  _This must be a hospital._

  Of course. He was being cared for in this place. Kindly doctors wereworking to restore his memory, to replace his identity, to restore hisjudgment apparatus, to tell him who and what he was. It was very good ofthem; he felt tears of gratitude start in his eyes.

  He stood up and walked slowly around his small room. He went to the doorand found it locked. That locked door gave him a moment of panic whichhe sternly controlled. Perhaps he had been violent.

  Well, he wouldn't be violent any more. They'd see. They would award himall possible patient privileges. He would speak about that with thedoctor.

  He waited. After a long time, he heard footsteps coming down thecorridor outside his door. He sat on the edge of the cot and listened,trying to control his excitement.

  The footsteps stopped beside his door. A panel slid open, and a facepeered in.

  "How are you feeling?" the man asked.

  He walked up to the panel, and saw that the man who questioned him wasdressed in a brown uniform. He had an object on his waist which couldbe identified, after a moment, as a weapon. This man was undoubtedly aguard. He had a blunt, unreadable face.

  "Could you tell me my name?" he asked the guard.

  "Call yourself 402," the guard said. "That's your cell number."

  He didn't like it. But 402 was better than nothing at all. He asked theguard, "Have I been sick for long? Am I getting better?"

  "Yes," the guard said, in a voice that carried no conviction. "Theimportant thing is, stay quiet. Obey the rules. That's the best way."

  "Certainly," said 402. "But why can't I remember anything?"

  "Well, that's the way it goes," the guard said. He started to walk away.

  402 called after him, "Wait! You can't just leave me like this, you haveto tell me something. What happened to me? Why am I in this hospital?"

  "Hospital?" the guard said. He turned toward 402 and grinned. "What gaveyou the idea this was a hospital?"

  "I assumed it," 402 said.

  "You assumed wrong. This is a prison."

  402 remembered his dream of the murdered man. Dream or memory?Desperately he called after the guard. "What was my offense? What did Ido?"

  "You'll find out," the guard said. />
  "When?"

  "After we land," the guard said. "Now get ready for assembly."

  He walked away. 402 sat down on the bed and tried to think. He hadlearned a few things. He was in a prison, and the prison was going toland. What did that mean? Why did a prison have to land? And what was anassembly?

  * * * * *

  402 had only a confused idea of what happened next. An unmeasurableamount of time passed. He was sitting on his bed, trying to piecetogether facts about himself. He had an impression of bells ringing. Andthen the door of his cell flew open.

  Why was that? What did it mean?

  402 walked to the door and peered into the corridor. He was veryexcited, but he didn't want to leave the security of his cell. Hewaited, and the guard came up.

  "All right, now," the guard said, "No one's going to hurt you. Gostraight down the corridor."

  The guard pushed him gently. 402 walked down the corridor. He saw othercell doors opening, other men coming into the corridor. It was a thinstream at first; but as he continued walking, more and more men crowdedinto the passageway. Most of them looked bewildered, and none of themtalked. The only words were from the guards:

  "Move along now, keep on moving, straight ahead."

  They were headed into a large circular auditorium. Looking around, 402saw that a balcony ran around the room, and armed guards were stationedevery few yards along it. Their presence seemed unnecessary; these cowedand bewildered men weren't going to stage a revolt. Still, he supposedthe grim-faced guards had a symbolic value. They reminded the newlyawakened men of the most important fact of their lives: that they wereprisoners.

  After a few minutes, a man in a somber uniform stepped out on thebalcony. He held up his hand for attention, although the prisoners werealready watching him fixedly. Then, though he had no visible means ofamplification, his voice boomed hollowly through the auditorium.

  "This is an indoctrination talk," he said. "Listen carefully and try toabsorb what I am about to tell you. These facts will be very importantfor your existence."

  The prisoners watched him. The speaker said, "All of you have, withinthe last hour, awakened in your cells. You have discovered that youcannot remember your former lives--not even your names. All you possessis a meager store of generalized knowledge; enough to keep you in touchwith reality.

  "I will not add to your knowledge. All of you, back on Earth, werevicious and depraved criminals. You were people of the worst sort, menwho had forfeited any right to consideration by the State. In a lessenlightened age, you would have been executed. In our age, you have beendeported."

  The speaker held out his hands to quiet the murmur that ran through theauditorium. He said, "All of you are criminals. And all of you have onething in common: an inability to obey the basic obligatory rules ofhuman society. Those rules are necessary for civilization to function.By disobeying them, you have committed crimes against all mankind.Therefore mankind rejects you. You are grit in the machinery ofcivilization, and you have been sent to a world where your own sort isking. Here you can make your own rules, and die by them. Here is thefreedom you lusted for; the uncontained and self-destroying freedom of acancerous growth."

  The speaker wiped his forehead and glared earnestly at the prisoners."But perhaps," he said, "a rehabilitation is possible for some of you.Omega, the planet to which we are going, is _your_ planet, a place ruledentirely by prisoners. It is a world where you could begin again, withno prejudices against you, with a clean record! Your past lives areforgotten. Don't try to remember them. Such memories would serve only torestimulate your criminal tendencies. Consider yourselves born afresh asof the moment of awakening in your cells."

  The speaker's slow, measured words had a certain hypnotic quality. 402listened, his eyes slightly unfocused and fixed upon the speaker's paleforehead.

  "A new world," the speaker was saying. "You are reborn--but with thenecessary consciousness of sin. Without it, you would be unable tocombat the evil inherent in your personalities. Remember that. Rememberthat there is no escape and no return. Guardships armed with the latestbeam weapons patrol the skies of Omega day and night. These ships aredesigned to obliterate anything that rises more than five hundred feetabove the surface of the planet--an invincible barrier through which noprisoner can ever pass. Accommodate yourselves to these facts. Theyconstitute the rules which must govern your lives. Think about whatI've said. And now stand by for landing."

  The speaker left the balcony. For a while, the prisoners simply staredat the spot where he had been. Then, tentatively, a murmur ofconversation began. After a while it died away. There was nothing totalk about. The prisoners, without memory of the past, had nothing uponwhich to base a speculation of the future. Personalities could not beexchanged, for those personalities were newly emerged and stillundefined.

  They sat in silence, uncommunicative men who had been too long insolitary confinement. The guards on the balcony stood like statues,remote and impersonal. And then the faintest tremor ran through thefloor of the auditorium.

  The tremor came again; then it changed into a definite vibration. 402felt heavier, as though an invisible weight were pressing against hishead and shoulders.

  A loudspeaker voice called out, "Attention! The ship is now landing onOmega. We will disembark shortly."

  * * * * *

  The last vibration died away, and the floor beneath them gave a slightlurch. The prisoners, still silent and dazed, were formed into a longline and marched out of the auditorium. Flanked by guards, they wentdown a corridor which stretched on interminably. From it, 402 began toget some idea of the size of the ship.

  Far ahead, he could see a patch of sunlight which shone brightly againstthe pale illumination of the corridor. His section of the long shufflingline reached the sunlight, and 402 saw that it came from an openhatchway through which the prisoners were passing.

  In his turn, 402 went through the hatchway, climbed down a longstairway, and found himself on solid ground. He was standing in an open,sunlit square. Guards were forming the disembarked prisoners into files;on all sides, 402 could see a crowd of spectators watching.

  A loudspeaker voice boomed, "Answer when your number is called. Youridentity will now be revealed to you. Answer promptly when your numberis called."

  402 felt weak and very tired. Not even his identity could interest himnow. All he wanted to do was lie down, to sleep, to have a chance tothink about his situation. He looked around and took casual note of thehuge starcraft behind him, of the guards, the spectators. Overhead, hesaw black dots moving against a blue sky. At first he thought they werebirds. Then, looking closer, he saw they were guardships. He wasn'tparticularly interested in them.

  "Number 1! Speak out!"

  "Here," a voice answered.

  "Number 1, your name is Wayn Southholder. Age 34, blood type A-L2, IndexAR-431-C. Guilty of treason."

  When the voice had finished, a loud cheer came up from the crowd. Theywere applauding the prisoner's traitorous actions, and welcoming him toOmega.

  The names were read down the list, and 402, drowsy in the sunshine,dozed on his feet and listened to the crimes of murder, credit theft,deviationalism, and mutantism. At last his number was called.

  "Number 402."

  "Here."

  "Number 402, your name is Will Barrent. Age 27, blood type O-L3, IndexJX-221-R. Guilty of murder."

  The crowd cheered, but 402 scarcely heard them. He was trying toaccustom himself to the idea of having a name. A real name instead of anumber. Will Barrent. He hoped he wouldn't forget it. He repeated thename to himself over and over again, and almost missed the lastannouncement from the ship's loudspeaker.

  "The new men are now released upon Omega. You will be given temporaryhousing at Square A-2. Be cautious and circumspect in your words andactions. Watch, listen, and learn. The law requires me to tell you thatthe average life expectancy on Omega is approximately three Earthyears."


  It took a while for those last words to take effect on Barrent. He wasstill contemplating the novelty of having a name. He hadn't consideredany of the implications of being a murderer on an underworld planet.